New game audio books from Damian Kastbauer and Aaron Marks + a look at Facebook 360’s audio tech:

Knowledge is power, and the insight offered in these three compilations will help you become a more well-rounded sound designer. Covering topics such as 360 audio rendering and encoding, game audio networking, creating strong contracts, the importance of community, and all you could want to know about technical audio, these collected works will help you strengthen your weak points no matter where you are in your career.

Damian Kastbauer has served a multifaceted role in the game audio community. As the Technical Audio Lead at PopCap, he has worked for companies like LucasArts, Telltale Games, Naughty Dog, and 2K. And if you learned Audiokinetic’s Wwise in the last few years, you’ve read his expressive writing. Recently, he released his Tales of a Technical Sound Designer, Volume 01 & Volume 02, which is available on paperback and PDF. This collection features his writings over the past 10 years with his contributions to the “Aural Fixation” column in Game Developer Magazine and his Audio Implementation Greats series for Designing Sound. It also compiles his Lost Chocolate Blog with inclusive interviews and community-focused commentary. For technical insight and altruistic inspiration, you can purchase the two volumes here.

Aaron Mark’s Complete Guide to Game Audio – 3rd Edition:

Aaron Mark’s Complete Guide to Game Audio – 3rd Edition is an all-encompassing blueprint for sound designers in game audio—whether you are finishing your university work, or are a pro transitioning from the film or music industry. Now in its 3rd Edition, this book contains even more advice from respected industry experts like Marty O’Donnell, Richard Jacques and Tom Salta, and it has discussions about changes in the industry to help you have a more informed outlook. Plus, it now has sample contracts to keep your working relationships with clients smooth, and advice about terms, negotiations and the all-important networking. If this sounds like the advice and guidance you need, you can pre-order the book here.

Under the hood of Facebook’s 360 tech:

Under the hood of Facebook’s 360 tech is a write-up on Facebook’s Engineering blog about the 360 audio discussion from Video @Scale, their invitation-only technical conference for engineers of large-scale video platforms. It covers topics such as encoding and rendering with the FB260 Encoder tool and the Rendering SDK for Oculus, sound quality, bandwidth, spatialization for different audio assets, latency, and much more. The post also covers workflows and gives insight into where Facebook is heading in 360 audio. If these topics sound intimidating, don’t worry – the post is written with a respectable lack of jargon, and it introduces each area clearly and succinctly for those who are coming from a general audio background. To read more about their thoughts and current challenges, check out the post here.

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THE WORLD’S EASIEST WAY TO GET INDEPENDENT SOUND EFFECTS:

A Sound Effect gives you easy access to an absolutely huge sound effects catalog from a myriad of independent sound creators, all covered by one license agreement
- a few highlights:

20 libraries of production elements and soundscapes suited to all forms of broadcast media. From glitched-out future computers to dark, ominous atmospheres, these libraries feature organic elements, analogue source material and extreme digital processing for a blend of the familiar and the experimental side of sound design.

Swordfighter is a robust package with sharp sounding swords, heaps of variations and all the extras you need to make a fight come alive. Build unique sword swings with various hits, swooshes, schings, different fighter vocals and impacts on various surfaces. All up there are 137 sword sounds, 93 surface impact sounds, 15 knife throwing sounds, 48 swooshes and 180 fighter vocals.

This version includes two sub-folders: one optimised for a film & TV workflow and the other optimised for video games workflow. Plus a few bonus sounds of a charging army.

‘Tiny Transitions’ deivers 275 short Whooshes and other Transition sounds. Instead of the huge, more cinematic transitional sounds that you are accustomed to hear from SoundBits, this sound pack focuses more on the smaller, not-so-intrusive production elements that come in very handy for any Sound Designer, All-In-One Film Editor or Web-, App- and Game-Developers.

All these small motion-supporting elements that you need in your everyday work for game menus, apps, general motion designs, … or as parts of more complex moving stuff.

You get 275 designed sounds + a selection of 290 cleaned and edited source sounds that were used to design the Tiny Transitions. These sounds are mostly different props that are scraping or sliding on different surfaces and also some vocalized whoosh attempts.

All source sounds were recorded with Sonosax SX-R4+ and Sennheiser MKH8050+MKH30 M/S rig.

Worldwide Rivers & Waterfalls is a thorough collection of 99 sound recordings made around the world. It comprises ‘loopeable’ sounds of a wide variety of water streams from tiny small to broad wide rivers.

They were recorded in mountains, countryside, on bridges, under bridges, in caves, in tunnel, underwater (hydrophones), and throughout various geological features, as narrow canyon, mighty rivers, shallow streams running on Pebbles, Icy cold flow from melted snow, or hot boiling streams from active geothermal terrains.

Most of the captures are declined with various perspectives and distances from the sound source, allowing better integration in movie scenes or games. The library was recorded in these countries: Spain, Switzerland, Iceland, Georgia, France, Canada, Thailand, Ecuador, and Slovakia.

Get the perfect bundle for trailer sound, featuring all 3 libraries in the Trailer Elements series – with modern sound design sounds inspired by the new trailers on Hollywood movies. The bundle includes Kontakt 5.6.6 instruments and WAV Versions.

Trailer Elements 2:
Cinematic Trailer Elements 2 is a cinematic toolkit library, packed with 84 minutes of heavy and powerful sounds. It features 53 instruments for Kontakt 5 (full version required – not included), as well as 354 wav files that can be used without Kontakt.

Trailer Elements 3:
TH Studio Production presents you our new sample library, the ‘Trailer Elements 3’ Sound FX Toolkit Library. Fresh new sound design sounds for trailers , video games and movies. Inspired by the sound of the latest Hollywood trailers, the library delivers 3 GB Content of (712 sounds), custom-made for trailers. It also features a version for Kontakt 5.6.6 (with 38 Kontakt instruments), as well as a WAV version.

The elves have been busy in the Epic Stock Media sound effects workshop this holiday season. And just in time for Christmas, they’ve outdone themselves by crafting the shiny all new Christmas & Holiday Sound Effects Library. It’s a complete collection of Christmas and winter holiday sound effects that’s perfect for YouTube videos, games, home videos, films, app games, podcasts, theatrical performances, explainer videos or any multi-media production.

Professional or novice, sound engineer or hobbyist can save a stocking full of time and immediately boost the quality of any production. Sounds of Jingle Bells, sleigh bells, Santa Claus and character voiceovers, Christmas magic sounds, whooshes and transitions, Santa’s sleigh fly-bys, fire and fireplace sound, toys and wrapping presents, tree decorating and background loops. Over 900 sound effects, loops, source and designed sounds. Premixed and mastered, everything is ready to use out of the box.

APP MAKER is a sound effects bundle consisting of the App FX and UI FX sound collections. This bundle was put together with the aim of providing a complete solution to the needs of general app development and user interface design, with sounds for just about every event and interaction. From general alerts to messaging, swipes, backgrounds, scans, clicks and many more.

This collection contains 1168 audio elements, and is divided into 28 folders across two collections, according the type of sound:

Last September we celebrated holidays in our new town, and we recorded more than 20 minutes of the firework night show from a close position. We recorded it in ambisonic (Zoom F8 and Sennheiser Ambeo VR Mic), and decoded and mixed in Dolby ATMOS at AdHoc Studios.